2018 digital marketing trends

After publishing the key figures for 2018, we now focus on digital marketing trends for the year coming.

Mobile influences marketing strategies

The victory of the mobile against the desktop. “The” Mobile Moment “remains one of the highlights of the last few months.

This inversion in the relationship between mobile and computer will further accentuate the development of AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) formats. This global trend, highlighted in the 2017 Consumer Barometer, influences all marketing strategies. The contents offered on the sites and platforms adapt, companies must design customer experiences taking into account the properties of smartphones.

The decline of organic reach on social networks

Social networks will not die in 2018, but their role is changing little by little.

The social network state considered by the brands as “a real playground since 2008-2009” but “it is positioned more and more like a media, and therefore to be visible it is necessary to pay. You have to be there, but you have to have a media budget to give visibility to the content.

The role of social media in terms of targets should be separated to formulate effective strategies. “The big digital trends are centered around social media in a role of lead generation for B2B and increased sales for B2C”.

On social media trends, we advise you to read this excellent analysis, published by Buffer earlier this week. We note that social networks (in their organic form) are becoming less and less like traffic acquisition channels.

The rise of influence marketing

Faced with this decline in the effectiveness of social networks (excluding paid advertising), marketers are looking for other levers.

Some enthusiasts have become real relays which it would be a shame to deprive themselves. Influence marketing has become commonplace, and more and more brands are using influencers to improve brand awareness or play on their brand.

“Digital marketing in 2018 will be marked by the emergence of influencers who can become a credible alternative to traditional levers.”

The “profession of influencer” is structured and is no longer reserved for the fashion and beauty sector. To support them and facilitate the links between brands and these new media, “many platforms have been developing for almost two years: Octoly, Lefty, Influence4You …” These KOL (Key Opinion Leader) have the advantage of having, sometimes before the brands and more effectively than these, invested all the platforms of the market: first blogs, then Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, etc. .

Content is changing

Whether brands speak on their behalf or borrow the word of opinion leaders, they must adapt their content to social networks. In recent years, especially in 2017, several trends have been very noticed. We obviously think of video, a format continually put forward by Facebook and others.

Media even chose to rotate completely, abandoning their websites – and probably also their independence.

Difficult to talk about content and social networks without talking about stories. Snapchat, then the whole ecosystem Facebook, YouTube and others got started. Brands have had no choice but to adapt, to reach an audience that appreciates these particular contents.

Social networks are not the only channels for accessing editorial content, brands are also stepping up their SEO efforts – while emphasizing the role of experience and prospect appetite for content. “The content must, in all cases, be customer oriented and adapted to its language”.

The rise of artificial intelligence

At the end of the year, we hear a lot about artificial intelligence, robots, machine learning, deep learning … Brands have high expectations, although use cases are still limited, especially for VSEs / SMEs.

They are already imagining how artificial intelligence can, or will, personalize each customer’s experience and maximize conversions.

Today, this “artificial intelligence” – although the term is often overused – is represented by some chatbots (when they integrate machine learning) and by personal assistants, who are beginning to be invested by brands.

The challenge is to design sufficiently new and strong consumer experiences while keeping a foot in the real world and optimizing transformation. Customization also enables this evolution and enrichment of the customer experience.

Digital transformation of traditional businesses

Pure players are naturally the most advanced on the digital. But little by little, click and mortar companies and traditional companies are taking inspiration from the choices made by pure players to implement their strategies.

Investment of more and more consequent of these companies which become competitors more and more serious. These companies can “set up cross-channel services and develop synergies between the Internet and points of sale”. Traditional companies will continue to transform in 2018 by adapting innovative processes carried by pure players.